{"id":3510,"date":"2012-04-22T10:06:21","date_gmt":"2012-04-22T17:06:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/travelthruhistory.com\/?p=3510"},"modified":"2020-07-24T10:21:54","modified_gmt":"2020-07-24T17:21:54","slug":"reading-for-henry-viii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/travelthruhistory.com\/reading-for-henry-viii\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading for Henry VIII"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Christ<\/p>\n

Oxford, England<\/h2>\n

by James G. Brueggermann<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m in a rented morning suit, minus the hat. Looking down the slender nave of a church finished eight hundred years ago, with a man in a full suit of armor lying carved in stone one room over, I\u2019m trying to get used to the idea that I\u2019m supposed to read in here. Out loud, in public. We\u2019re early, on purpose.<\/p>\n

Tom, a friendly vestryman my age, takes me up the aisle to the place I\u2019m to read from. It\u2019s a carved dark oak lectern with two steps, halfway up on the right. People on both sides will be facing each other across the center aisle, he explains, except where the lectern looks directly across at the wedding party. A bit further up is where the priest will give her message and officiate the ceremony. When the time comes to do the witnessing, the priest will escort the couple and their parents all the way forward to sign the documents at the high altar, above the handwriting of the Archbishop of Canterbury. My neice had asked me to read at her wedding as her godfather. We worked it all out by email.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course! I would love to,\u201d I responded. \u201cIt will be an honor! Where will the wedding be?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt Christ Church Cathedral, in Oxford,\u201d she replied. Where she and her fianc\u00e9e teach and study.<\/p>\n

My wife Carolyn and I were very excited. What a perfect opportunity to see Oxford, celebrate with family, tour the University, walk the Cotswolds.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Henry VIII\u2019s cathedral. He took the place from the Catholic Church about 500 years ago when there was a lot of fighting over property and ideas between monks and kings. Like now, except these days it\u2019s between political parties, gangs and governments. Besides, there aren\u2019t as many monks around, and hardly any kings.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

After Tom\u2019s briefing, I got a short course about the stone knight and the cathedral from Sally, an interested congregation member. The knight was important, but the place wasn\u2019t about him. It was all about Frideswide.<\/p>\n

Frideswide was the daughter of Oxford\u2019s ruler in the 600\u2019s. She took vows, started a convent and seemed to be doing fine until a nearby king decided to take her in marriage by force. When Frideswide prayed for her safety, the king (and\/or his soldiers, depending on who\u2019s telling the story) was struck blind at the Oxford gate. Once it all died down, Frideswide agreed to restore everyone\u2019s vision on the condition they fully repent, which of course they did. She went back to running her priory. By the time she died, it had monks, nuns, a school and a convent church, the predecessor of this cathedral, in which they buried her.<\/p>\n

In 1525, Cardinal Wolsey dissolved Frideswide\u2019s priory in order to build himself a College in its place. It would be called, not surprisingly, Cardinal College. Unfortunately for Wolsey, he had a job-limiting problem, which was that, try as he might, he couldn\u2019t get the Pope to annul Henry\u2019s marriage to Catherine of Aragon.<\/p>\n

But Henry really wanted that annulment. He sidelined Wolsey, proclaimed himself the Supreme Head of the Church of England, had his own Archbishop Cranmer make the annulment, married Anne Boleyn and got himself excommunicated by the Pope. Personally. After that, he dissolved the English monasteries and took their property, including Cardinal College which he renamed Christ Church. Which is where we are standing.<\/p>\n

Back to Frideswide.. In 1553, a former nun named Catherine Dammartin died. She was the wife of a Protestant divinity professor working in the College at Christ Church. They buried her in the cathedral close to Frideswide, who had by this time been a saint for centuries.<\/p>\n

Bloody Mary (Henry\u2019s daughter with Catherine of Aragon) took the throne that year. High on her list was restoring England to Catholicism. On that agenda, Cardinal Pole ejected Catherine (the deceased now-Protestant former nun) from Saint Frideswide\u2019s church, dumping her remains into a manure pile out behind the stables. Elizabeth I (Henry\u2019s daughter with Anne Boleyn) was next in line for the throne when Bloody Mary died. Elizabeth was Protestant. Catherine was headed back inside.<\/p>\n

Her remains were retrieved from behind the stables and mixed with the bones of Frideswide, in what must have been quite a service, right here in this very church. They were re-buried together beneath the floor, the Catholic saint and the Protestant married nun, not far from the stone knight.<\/p>\n

I would read a passage from the Song of Solomon, my niece had said. She gave me the verses to rehearse.<\/p>\n

\u201cSet me as a seal upon your heart,\u201d the middle part goes, \u201cas a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wow. I wondered if Henry ever read that. I hoped so.<\/p>\n

Love, death, passion, graves. They\u2019re all here.<\/p>\n

I needed to get calm. I wanted to read the words the way Solomon would have recited them, surely how the wedding party wants to hear them.<\/p>\n

Tom the vestryman smiles. He sees I have the words typed out, slipped into a leather-like folder I can carry up to the lectern. I think he knows the folder will mask my shaking hands.<\/p>\n

I step up behind the lectern. \u201cOK. It\u2019s time. Henry, are you there? I\u2019m going to read now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nOxford, the Cotswolds and Stratford-upon-Avon Day Trip from Oxford including Shakespeare’s Birthplace<\/a><\/p>\n

If You Go:<\/h3>\n

Christ Church Cathedral<\/a>
\nChrist Church Cathedral, Oxford<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

About the author:<\/em>
\nJames Brueggermann is a physician who practiced clinical neurology and medical administration. Since retiring in 2000, he has traveled with his wife in Europe, Asia and the Americas (independent travel as well as volunteering in Conversational English Teaching and Habitat for Humanity projects). He has compiled a group of about fifty personal essays, many of them travel-related, which are ready for publication. Since 1978 he has published personal essays, medical articles, prose poetry and haiku in Ars Medica, Group Practice Journal, Journal of Emergency Medicine, Medical Humanities, Modern Haiku, Minnesota Medicine, Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, Physician Executive Journal, Pudding Magazine and The Lutheran.<\/p>\n

Photo credits:<\/em>
\nChrist Church Cathedral interior by Diliff<\/a> \/ CC BY-SA<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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